Advice for undecided voters or those leaning toward Trump: Don't be stupid! Pay attention, damn it!

For everyone

Advice for undecided voters: Pay attention, damn it!

If you are undecided at this stage of the election cycle, you have not been paying attention.

The first duty of every citizen in a democracy is to inform themselves, to the best of their ability, about the candidates and the issues in the election.

If you have been lazy and are leaning toward or committed to voting for Trump and the Republicans because you are simply following the mass emotions of your tribe, there is still time for you to inform yourself and be a patriot. You can still be a good citizen who takes his duties and responsibilities seriously.

And if you have children, you can still be a parent who makes them proud, and of whom they will be proud in 20 years. You can still be a model for them of a good citizen, one who takes his responsibilities as a citizen in a democracy seriously.

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What is the point of a debate with a proven liar?

What is the point of such a debate before many “low information” and credulous voters who have no memory, and therefore no basis to determine whether what the candidate says is true or false?

What can we learn from the presidential debate tonight?

1. That there is no more important qualification to be president of the United States than honesty.

2. That in the most fundamental sense, the presidential race is about character.

Key questions you should ask

1. Ask yourself: Who would you choose to run your business, head your church, or run your school? Who would you choose to babysit or otherwise care for your children?

2. Why would you vote for a candidate of such known and proven dishonesty, dishonesty that would disqualify the candidate from almost any job?

3. Why would you vote for a convicted criminal who has also been indicted by independent grand juries for the commission of many serious felonies, in the District of Columbia, Georgia, and Miami, Florida?

4. If you believe these indictments are the product of a “witch hunt” and without merit, have you read the charges?

See, e.g., Melissa Murray and Andrew Weissmann, The Trump Indictments: The Historic Charging Documents with Commentary (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2024).

5.Have you seriously tried to find out if such a “witch hunt” in fact exists, and whether the charges against the candidate are groundless, as he maintains?

Investigate the facts.

Wake up and pay attention!

James Rowles is a former Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and professor of international law at other universities. He is the author of The Rape of American Democracy: Republican Actions and Democratic Failures, 2016-2021 (forthcoming in September, 2024).

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